Data Backup Digest

VMware, primarily known for platform virtualization and hypervisor technology, recently announced plans to sell off their flagship hybrid cloud service, vCloud Air. While many took this as a sign that the company just couldn’t compete in the current era of cloud computing, some new details are emerging that involve a partnership between two former partners: VMware and AWS.

A Cyberspace Short Sale

While it did enjoy some amount of success, VMware’s vCloud Air was short-lived. Originally launched in mid-2014, the hybrid platform was a bold attempt to compete with the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
But the move wasn’t exactly a surprise. The team with VMware announced their new partnership with AWS at the VMworld conference in 2016. Many believed then that the end was near for vCloud Air and, as it turns out, they were correct. VMware’s vCloud Air was eventually sold to OVH, a cloud hosting provider based out of France
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Russell P. Reeder, president and CEO of OVH, was optimistic about welcoming former vCloud Air customers to his company. He was quoted as saying: “OVH’s global reach and technology innovation, combined with VMware’s software-defined data center technology, will give customers competitive hyper-scale cloud economics. Both companies are committed to providing a seamless transition for current vCloud Air customers, great customer support, increased access to our global network and modern green data centers.”

Benefits on Both Sides of the Deal

There are benefits for both VMware and AWS in this deal. Firstly, VMware no longer has to compete with Amazon’s web platform. Instead, they’ll take advantage of the AWS platform to host the VMware Cloud Foundation service. This program provides the virtualization and storage functionality of VMware with the processing power and reliability of the AWS network.

On the other side of the coin, Amazon has much to gain. Not only do they benefit from eliminating one of their rivals in the cloud computing game, but they get to solidify their presence in the niche of on-premise data center management. Amazon’s move also coincides with similar, independent actions by both Microsoft and Google.

As you can see, the cloud computing continues to heat up as companies rebrand themselves and reposition themselves amongst the industry leaders.

Expansion in Other Areas

VMware is also expanding in other areas. The company originally unveiled vSphere Integrated Containers (VIC) in mid-2015 and it has received continued support ever since. Currently in iteration 1.1, VIC is focused on usability and compatibility between container workloads and virtual processes.

Paul Fazzone, general manager of Cloud Native Apps with VMware, explained vSphere Integrated Containers and their function in a recent interview by saying: “The right way to think about vSphere Integrated Containers is as a fairly seamless extension to the vSphere and vCenter operator experience that hundreds of thousands of customers around the world already use to deploy their virtual machine workloads. vSphere Integrated Containers allows those customers to have the same deployment and management capabilities, but for containerized workloads.”

VMware has also introduced new functionality to their Photon operating system. All of this activity makes it apparent that VMware is not only staying in the cloud computing race, but they’re expanding their presence across the board.